Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. (2 Timothy 4:2-5 KJV)

Main menu

Tag Archives: Easter Day

Post navigation

The Paschal Lamb is the sacrifice that the Torah mandates to be brought on the eve of Passover, and eaten on the first night of the holiday with bitter herbs and matzoh. According to the Torah, it was first offered on the night of the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt.

The LORD said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD’s Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt. “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel. On the first day you shall hold a holy assembly, and on the seventh day a holy assembly. No work shall be done on those days. But what everyone needs to eat, that alone may be prepared by you. And you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this very day I brought your hosts out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day, throughout your generations, as a statute forever. In the first month, from the fourteenth day of the month at evening, you shall eat unleavened bread until the twenty-first day of the month at evening. For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land. You shall eat nothing leavened; in all your dwelling places you shall eat unleavened bread.”
(Exodus 12:1-20 ESV)

HaShem said, “This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the LORD; throughout your generations, as a statute forever, you shall keep it as a feast. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven out of your houses, for if anyone eats what is leavened, from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.” So how did the Passover get replaced with Easter? And how was lamb replaced with ham as a traditional part of the presumably Biblical holiday of Easter? Where did the Easter bunny, Easter eggs and marshmallow chickens come from? The answers may surprise you.

Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. Yeshua rose from the dead on the third day after His crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday (also calledResurrection Day or Resurrection Sunday).

Easter marks the end of Lent, a forty-day period of fasting, prayer, and penance. The last week of the Lent is called Holy Week, and it contains Good Friday, commemorating the crucifixion and death of Yeshua. Easter is followed by a fifty-day period called Eastertide or the Easter Season, ending with Pentecost Sunday.

Easter is mentioned by name once in the Bible. In the Acts of the Apostles it says, “Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. (Then were the days of unleavened bread.) And when he had apprehended him, he put him in prison, and delivered him to four quaternions of soldiers to keep him; intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people (Acts 12:1-4 KJV).”

King Herod Agrippa I persecuted the Jerusalem church, having James killed and imprisoning Peter. King Herod Agrippa I had been born and raised to revere his Jewishness. He resented the movement that had began during his absence from Judea, which was explained to him by the religious leaders of Israel as a sacrilegious mission trying to equate who they considered to be a mere man, Jesus of Nazareth (Yeshua the Messiah), with the God of Judaism. This certainly doesn’t sound like someone who would be observing the “Christian” holiday of Easter, does it?

Almost every other English translation of the Bible says Passover rather than Easter. Passover is a mistranslation. Only the King James Version has translated this passage correctly. This is very easy to conclude when you read the passage. Passover occurs before the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The Apostle Peter was arrested and imprisoned by King Herod after Passover and during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Easter in this passage is referring to a pagan festival.

Most reference books say that the name Easter derived from the Eastre, the Teutonic (Germanic) goddess of Spring. Although this relationship exists, in reality, the origin of the name and the goddess are far more ancient – going all the way back to the Tower of Babel. The origin begins not long after the Biblical Flood of Noah’s time. After the Flood, Noah had a talented, but evil, great-grandson named Nimrod who rebelled greatly against God. The Bible says that he was “a mighty one.” Rabbinical commentaries state that Nimrod was a tyrant “who made all of the people rebellious against God.” It is evident from history that Nimrod was not only a political leader, but also the high priest of a form of occult worship.

Nimrod deified himself as the god of the sun and father of creation. In various cultures he later became known by many names, including Baal, Baalim, Bel, and Molech. Semiramis deified herself as Ishtar, the goddess of the moon and fertility. In various cultures she became known as Eostre, Astarte, Ostera, Eastre, Ashtaroth, Ashtoreth, and the Queen of Heaven. After Nimrod died, this adulterous and idolatrous woman gave birth to an illegitimate son, she claimed that this son, Tammuz, was the product of a virgin birth and her subjects viewed her child as the fulfillment of the Messianic prophecy in Genesis 3:15 (seed of the woman). She also claimed that Tammuz was Nimrod reincarnated. Coincidentally, Tammuz’s birth date was December 25th (a birth date also shared by Ra the Egyptian sun god, Zeus the Greek sun god and Mithras the Roman sun god).

Under Nimrod and Semiramis, a terrible false religion developed with its sun and moon worship, priests, astrology, demonic worship, worship of stars associated with their gods, idolatry, mysterious rites, human sacrifice, and more. It was at Nimrod’s city of Babel that a towering structure was first built in defiance of God as part of their Satanic religion. The purpose of this structure was to declare war on God for destroying their ancestors in the Biblical Flood. Archaeological evidence indicates that this was a spectacular pyramid-shaped structure (ziggurat). The Bible tells us that at this time there was only one language in the world and that most of the world’s population centered in this area and participated in this religion. It was evident to God that all mankind would soon degenerate into a level of evil that would parallel that of the antediluvian world. For humanity’s sake, something had to be done to slow and frustrate this organization of an evil one world, tyrannical government.

God confused their language, so that they could not understand each other (Genesis 11:7). This is the ultimate source of the world’s many languages. As a result, many people moved away from the area in groups according to their particular new language. Most, if not all, of these people carried their evil Satanic religion with them. They continued to worship the stars and practice all the other ungodly rituals of their religion. Some also continued to build pyramids reminiscent of the Tower of Babel as part of this religion. Today, we can still find remnants of these throughout the world (Iraq, South America, Central America, Egypt, Burma).

Babylonia was the origin of an idolatrous system that swept the world. The Bible often speaks of the Satanic religions which came from Babylonia. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus “witnessed the religion and its rites in numerous countries and mentions how Babylon was the primeval source from which all systems of idolatry flowed.” Austen Layard said, “that we have the united testimony of sacred and profane history that idolatry originated in the area of Babylonia, the most ancient of religious systems.” The Prophet Jeremiah wrote, “Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD’S hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad” (Jeremiah 51:7 KJV).

In some legends, Tammuz was killed by a wild boar in a hunting accident when he was forty years old. In ancient Babylon, the followers of Ishtar joined her in mourning and proclaimed a forty day period of sorrow (one day for each year of his life) each year prior to the anniversary of the death of Tammuz. During this time, no meat was to be eaten. Thus the practice of mourning for the loss of the “son of god” was adopted by many for centuries afterwards. This act was later “Christianised” and given the name of Lent. Today, Easter falls right after the observance of the forty days of Lent.

According to pagan sun god religions, Semiramis, the wife of Nimrod, the sun god, and mother of Tammuz, the reborn sun god, upon her death was sent back by the sun god Nimrod as the large-breasted fertility goddess Easter. She was sent back the first Sunday after the Vernal Equinox (Easter Sunday) in a large egg that landed in the Euphrates River. The egg then opened and Easter emerged. In order to show her divinity she changed a bird into an egg-laying rabbit (The Easter Bunny).

Easter’s priests, in honor of her fertility, would impregnate young virgins upon her altar in a Tammuz Cave. The following year, these priests would sacrifice these three-month-old infants upon the same altar at sunrise on Sunday morning (Easter Sunrise Service). They would then take eggs (fertility) and dip them in the red blood of these sacrificed infants (Easter eggs). These pagans would then kill and roast the boar (in remembrance of the death of Tammuz) and eat Ham on Easter Sunday.

In every legend, Tammuz dies young and his birth is honored on his birthday which coincided with the Winter Solstice. Part of the religious ritual involved cutting down a young evergreen tree as a way of commemorating the premature death of Tammuz. Along with this the Babylonians would also burn a Yule log, called “the log of the son.” It was burned in the fire to symbolize the death of Tammuz. The next day the evergreen tree would be decorated with silver and gold. The log that was burned was now alive again as the Tammuz Tree (Christmas Tree). The prophet Jeremiah described how the birth of Tammuz was celebrated in ancient Babylon.

Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.
(Jeremiah 10:1-5 KJV)

Then all the men which knew that their wives had burned incense unto other gods, and all the women that stood by, a great multitude, even all the people that dwelt in the land of Egypt, in Pathros, answered Jeremiah, saying, As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the LORD, we will not hearken unto thee. But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine. And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men?
(Jeremiah 44:15-19 KJV)

The worship of these pagan gods continued to be a problem throughout Israel’s history. Not only does the Prophet Jeremiah write about Ishtar and Tammuz, the Prophet Ezekiel did as well.

He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do. Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD’S house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD’S house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.
(Ezekiel 8:13-16 KJV)

The cross is one of the most ancient human symbols, and is used by many religions, such as Christianity. It is frequently a representation of the division of the world into four elements or cardinal points, or alternately as the union of the concepts of divinity, the vertical line, and the world, the horizontal line. Examples include the Egyptian Ankh, Coptic Ankh, Celtic Cross, Hands of God, Swastika , Tau Cross, Furka Cross, and the Sun Cross. Roman crucifixion was carried out on a cross which originated from a sun cross design. Yeshua the Messiah was executed on one of these devices. Later, Romans hung Jewish patriots (zealots) on a Mithras cross after the Jews rose up against Rome in 70 A.D.

When God asked Abraham and to offer his only son Isaac on Mount Moriah, this was symbolic of the atonement that Yeshua would make for our sins. Mount Moriah is where the Holy Temple was built in Jerusalem. Yeshua was crucified a short distance from this location.

And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-Jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen. And the angel of the LORD called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, And said, By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.
(Genesis 22:1-18 KJV)

The Passover Feast was also a shadow of things to come. It was symbolic of Yeshua’s atonement for the sins of mankind. When John the Baptist performed Yeshua’s Mikvah (Baptism), it is written that he said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29 KJV).

Then came Jesus forth, wearing the crown of thorns, and the purple robe. And Pilate saith unto them, Behold the man! When the chief priests therefore and officers saw him, they cried out, saying, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Take ye him, and crucify him: for I find no fault in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and by our law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid; And went again into the judgment hall, and saith unto Jesus, Whence art thou? But Jesus gave him no answer. Then saith Pilate unto him, Speakest thou not unto me? knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee? Jesus answered, Thou couldest have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above: therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin. And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar’s friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar. When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he brought Jesus forth, and sat down in the judgment seat in a place that is called the Pavement, but in the Hebrew, Gabbatha. And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away. And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst. And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin. Then said the chief priests of the Jews to Pilate, Write not, The King of the Jews; but that he said, I am King of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written I have written. Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also his coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled, which saith, They parted my raiment among them, and for my vesture they did cast lots. These things therefore the soldiers did. Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home. After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth. When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away. Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs: But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water. And he that saw it bare record, and his record is true: and he knoweth that he saith true, that ye might believe. For these things were done, that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be broken. And again another scripture saith, They shall look on him whom they pierced.
(John 19:5-37 KJV)

Yeshua the Messiah was our sin atonement. He was the Lamb of God and our Paschal sacrifice.

Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
(1 Corinthians 5:6-8 KJV)

Is this how we should serve our Messiah and Savior? Many of us have made a mockery of Passover, the Crucifixion and Resurrection. Many of us have abandoned the Passover Feast and Communion that was to be a shadow of things to come and remembrance of Yeshua’s conquering of death upon a pagan cross, Comsuming ham (an unclean animal), dyed eggs, chocolate rabbits, marshmallow rabbits zns having Ester eggs hunts, all symbolism from Babylon, has to be an insult to Yeshua and to HaShem. If you have desecrated the Passover and Resurrection Day of Messiah Yeshua to serve pagan gods and traditions, there is still time to make things right. We need to serve God, not insult Him. God wants us to serve Him in spirit and in truth, not lies and deceit.

But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
(John 4:23-24 KJV)

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
(2 Corinthians 6:14-18 KJV)

Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil.
(1 Thessalonians 5:21-22 KJV)

Should a Christian (a disciple of Yeshua the Messiah) celebrate Ash Wednesday, Lent or Easter? That depends entirely on which God you choose to serve. My family celebrates the Biblical Feast of Passover. We never wish others a Happy Easter, instead we wish them a Happy Passover and Resurrection Day.

Observe and hear all these words which I command thee, that it may go well with thee, and with thy children after thee for ever, when thou doest that which is good and right in the sight of the LORD thy God. When the LORD thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land; Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise. Thou shalt not do so unto the LORD thy God: for every abomination to the LORD, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods. What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.
(Deuteronomy 12:28-32 KJV)

Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods; For the LORD our God, he it is that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed: And the LORD drave out from before us all the people, even the Amorites which dwelt in the land: therefore will we also serve the LORD; for he is our God. And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the LORD: for he is an holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. If ye forsake the LORD, and serve strange gods, then he will turn and do you hurt, and consume you, after that he hath done you good. And the people said unto Joshua, Nay; but we will serve the LORD. And Joshua said unto the people, Ye are witnesses against yourselves that ye have chosen you the LORD, to serve him. And they said, We are witnesses. Now therefore put away, said he, the strange gods which are among you, and incline your heart unto the LORD God of Israel. And the people said unto Joshua, The LORD our God will we serve, and his voice will we obey. So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day, and set them a statute and an ordinance in Shechem. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the LORD. And Joshua said unto all the people, Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of the LORD which he spake unto us: it shall be therefore a witness unto you, lest ye deny your God. So Joshua let the people depart, every man unto his inheritance.
(Joshua 24:14-28 KJV)